


Start Calling

by broadwayblainey



Series: Blue Christmas [5]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 20:11:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13174344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadwayblainey/pseuds/broadwayblainey
Summary: The next two parts of this are going to be a little different, hopefully still okay.Kurt looks at his friends and at the way he feels about the current state of his life.





	Start Calling

There's no blueprint for coping with loss, Kurt had learned that when his mother died. There were the five stages of grief and none of those seemed to fit him. He felt nothing at first; a numbness that settled deep into his bones and stayed there for years. He went on with his life as if he was living someone else's, because this couldn't possibly be happening to him, the hurt belonged to someone else. Of course, it didn't. It hit him years later and didn't leave him for a long time. Maybe it still hadn't, he wasn't sure. Then there was a new pain. Finn died and he wasn't sure he would make it through that because, despite their arguments and the thousand things that made them different, he loved him in a way he didn't know he could. Like a brother, he supposed. But more than that, he was his friend. Actually, he became his best friend when he started standing up for him against the bullies of McKinley High.  
That, he thought, was what led him to his husband. Kurt's self-esteem had been crushed and he didn't have anyone other than his Dad who loved him unconditionally, but, try as he might, Burt just didn't get it. That's what he had wanted, unconditional love, and he had been so young, barely nineteen when they met, and Kevin seemed perfect. His husband was twelve years older, mature and established, easily confident and could command a room like it was nothing. Kurt, who hadn't found his way in the world yet and hadn't quite shaken the awkwardness of his teenage years, fell for him so quickly he moved in with him after two months. If Kurt had met him now, with the wisdom that only years of dealing with the bullshit that people tend to bring can harness, he knew he would see straight through Kevin; he would see that his confidence is arrogance, his way of commanding the room is controlling and his maturity balances on his ability to get his own way. Maybe if he had known better he would have left after the first time Kevin hit him or told him to change his clothes or to act differently or to stop talking to his friends. Maybe if he had known that loving someone wasn't meant to hurt like that, he wouldn't be under the fog of the same numbness he had been under years before. He had wanted someone to love him so much that he made himself love the wrong person for a decade. Thinking about it made him feel sick.  
The difference between the old grief and this new grief was that he didn't even know what he was grieving for, his marriage or himself. He had changed in ways that seemed conflicting; he knew better now, he hoped, he knew that he wasn't meant to alter everything about himself for love, he didn't have to make himself docile and submissive for someone else to feel good. But, at the same time, he felt like the spark he had, the thing that made him bold and different and got him through his teenage years, was gone. He just hoped he could reignite it. He hoped because he wasn't sure he would make it without it.  
He watched his new friends who he knew had been through pain like he had. Admittedly, he didn't know the extent of their pasts, but he knew parts. Brian, who laughed louder than anyone Kurt had ever met and had no hesitation in standing up for him after knowing him for only a few days, had a family who didn't want to know him anymore. Their loss, he had insisted, but Kurt could see it hurt him. He didn't know much of AJ, but they had mentioned in passing their late mother and Kurt understood the inability to talk about that, he still couldn't talk about his. Aoife was passed around the foster system, handed from family to family before leaving for London from Dublin at sixteen and not looking back. Kurt watched the two of them together; they loved so fiercely that when Aoife kissed AJ's cheek he felt the urge to look away, like he was intruding on a deeply intimate moment. They all had their things, that was obvious to him. He just didn't know how they seemed so whole when Kurt felt ripped in half. Maybe it came with time, maybe it was fake. Kurt hoped for the former.  
Then there was Blaine. Sweet, wonderful, kind Blaine who had wrapped a fluffy blanket around them both when he sat next to him. He sat close and whispered jokes about Brian's bitchy drag persona, or Aoife's terrible driving or AJ's awful American accent. And he laughed and included him like they had been friends for years. Like they had always been together. Blaine, who had no one but the other people in the room, and barely had a place to live, had opened his life to Kurt without so much as a second thought. He had been so uncommonly kind to him when he didn't even know what he would do in the next hour, let alone with his life. Blaine who was so careful with him, too careful sometimes like he thought he might break, never pushed him too far or made him feel like he was burdening him in some way. He was sweet and affectionate and so, so selfless that, if he hadn't only known him a few days, Kurt would have sworn he was falling for him.  
That terrified him; the idea of giving anyone, even just a crush, the power to hurt him like Kevin had petrified him so deeply it made his palms sweat and his stomach tie up in knots. He didn't think Blaine would do that to him but, he hadn't thought Kevin would either. His view of what people could do to him had become warped and he could feel the carefully constructed walls that he had knocked down for Kevin all those years ago start building themselves again. He could feel them when he ignored his Dad's calls or when he didn't answer Carole's texts or when he turned away from Blaine when he slept. Perhaps he didn't have to heal all at once, though. Maybe progress was made when he stayed with Blaine instead of running. Maybe it was made when he left his husband behind him. Maybe every moment that he didn't let that man touch him anymore was a small victory.  
Maybe healing is a waiting game.


End file.
